Translated by Martinus Cawley, and Preface by Barbara Newman

Send Me God

The Lives of Ida the Compassionate of Nivelles, Nun of la Ramée, Arnulf, Lay Brother of Villers, and Abundus, Monk of Villers, by Goswin of Bossut

Translated by Martinus Cawley, and Preface by Barbara Newman

“This volume, containing the Lives of Ida the Compassionate of Nivelles and other medieval Cistercian saints, makes a major contribution to our understanding of monastic life and thought in the High Middle Ages. I am certain that it will be welcomed in the scholarly world and will be used by generations of professors, graduate students, and others interested in medieval spirituality.” —Brian Patrick McGuire, author of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation

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Table of Contents

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In the early thirteenth century, the diocese of Liège witnessed an extraordinary religious revival, known to us largely through the abundant corpus of saints’ lives from that region. Cistercian monks and nuns, along with beguines and recluses, formed close-knit networks of spiritual friendship that easily crossed the boundaries of gender, religious status, and even language. Holy women such as Mary of Oignies and Christina the Astonishing were held up by their biographers as models of orthodoxy and miraculous powers. Less familiar but no less fascinating are the male saints of the region. In this volume, Martinus Cawley has translated a trilogy of Cistercian lives composed by the same hagiographer, Goswin, who was a monk and cantor at the celebrated abbey of Villers in Brabant. Although all three of these saints were connected with the same order, their versions of holiness represent a study in contrasts, from the compassionate nun Ida of Nivelles, remarkable for her Eucharistic raptures, to the fiercely ascetic lay brother Arnulf, to the gentle monk Abundus, renowned for his deep liturgical and Marian piety. The title Send Me God derives from a revealing catchphrase that devout men and women used to request prayers from their spiritual friends.

Send Me God is published as part of the Brepols Medieval Women Series.

“This volume, containing the Lives of Ida the Compassionate of Nivelles and other medieval Cistercian saints, makes a major contribution to our understanding of monastic life and thought in the High Middle Ages. I am certain that it will be welcomed in the scholarly world and will be used by generations of professors, graduate students, and others interested in medieval spirituality.” —Brian Patrick McGuire, author of Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation

“This book brings together three Lives, all of Cistercians from thirteenth-century Flanders: a nun, a lay brother, and a choir monk, collected in a single volume, handsomely (and heavily) bound. Barbara Newman's fine Preface gives a helpful orientation to the kind of hagiography represented by these Lives and many others set in the same time and region. . . . The extensive research Fr. Martinus has done is reflected in the copious notes; these include references to the geography of the area, the Statutes of the Order and the decisions of the early General Chapters and give context to the Lives. The notes also contain cross-references to words and themes elsewhere in the volume, as well as the explanations of some of the translations.” —Edith Scholl, Cistercian Studies Quarterly

“In addition, each of them was, as many of their contemporaries were, mystically prone, with the added bonus of being able to transmit their experiences to a third person—hence the title Send me God. . . . The translations themselves are careful and polished and are accompanied by excellent explanatory notes. The volume also includes a good map. . . . Those interested in the monastic history of the period will find a lot of interesting details about daily life. . . . This is an important resource for a knowledge of the era; it is made especially valuable by the quality of Fr. Martinus’ scholarship and his remarkable tenacity for ferreting out information on minor details. . . . The volume is pleasantly produced with Brepol’s usual attention to detail.” —Michael Casey, Tjurunga

“This is a splendid volume. It comes with its own kit of tools to enrich the reader’s scholarly experience.” —Robert Sweetman, Catholic Historical Review

“His subsequent translations are meticulously researched and well documented for those who wish to dig deeper into this literary form.” —Kathleen M. Fisher, Catholic Books Review

Martinus Cawley is a member of the community of Our Lady of GuadalupeTrappist Abbey in Lafayette, Oregon.